


only you who can calm the thunders

by chocolatebirdie



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: also ignoring setting bc i just am, hand-wavingly choosing to ignore all current context except the line from last night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24146023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatebirdie/pseuds/chocolatebirdie
Summary: "I know you loved me.""It's not past tense."2x09 coda.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 27
Kudos: 139





	only you who can calm the thunders

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i know "you came" / "you asked me to" was a literal CRUMB, but what a delicious fucking crumb it was. 
> 
> maria who?

"It's not past tense."

"What?"

"You keep saying I loved you." Michael can easily picture Alex, leaning in to kiss him in a tool shed. Alex, telling him he wants to be with him. Alex, coming back to him when he was on leave. Alex, staying with him in the airstream. Alex, saying he doesn't look away. Alex, not wanting to be another Manes man standing in his way. (As if he ever could.) Alex, who came because Michael asked him to. Alex. "It's not past tense."

Alex sucks in a breath.

"I don't look away, Alex." But that doesn't feel like enough. He's tired of talking in metaphors and past tenses. He's just tired. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. "I love you. I think... I think I’ll never stop. Even if I wanted to."

"Even though you wanted to." It's a subtle change in wording, but a profound one.

Michael shakes his head, even though Alex can't see him through the phone. "I didn't want to. I don't. Not really. I ... I wanted." He swallows thickly. This level of honesty is still pretty hard for him most days. "I wanted control. I wanted to, to stop being left. You, my mom, Max. I thought if I did the leaving, it'd make it easier, it'd hurt less."

"Did it?" Alex asks, his voice small. "Make it easier?"

"Every second I’ve tried to look away from you is..." Michael pauses, picks at his jeans with his fingers. He stares at his healed hand as he does so, covered up even though he's alone. He hates looking at it, hates feeling like he may have imagined the worst and best day of his life all in one. "...excruciating," he sighs.

There is static on the other end, and if it weren't for Alex’s steady breathing Michael might worry he'd hung up. But there is, and more importantly, Michael knows he would never do that; he wouldn't intentionally hurt Michael that way. No, that's Michael’s territory.

"Then don't," Alex whispers after some time.

"Don't what?"

"Don't look away." Alex’s voice is getting unbearably small; prepared for the worst. And Michael, goddamn it all, he just can't take that.

"I won't," he promises - never mind that he doesn't know how. "But Alex, I don't know if that can fix everything. I don't know if it can fix _anything_. If we could fix all our problems just by loving each other hard enough - "

"We'd be perfect," Alex finishes, a note of irony in his voice.

Yes, they were the furthest thing from perfect. But Michael just - he just didn't fucking care.

"I don't need perfect, Alex," he shakes his head, smiling down at his hands. His hands may be fixed, but they weren't perfect. Not a damn cell in him was. And Alex, Alex could never be perfect - but Michael didn't care. Not one little bit.

He didn't want perfect. He didn't want easy. He just -

"I just need you."

"You can have me, Michael." Michael feels his heart squeeze just a little too tight at that. "All of me."

Michael picks up his keys, walking out of the airstream to head towards his truck. He and Alex had a lot of talking - and a lot of celebratory _not talking_ \- to do. And he, frankly, could not fucking wait.

"Sold."

**Author's Note:**

> here's the thing. in my honest, and completely biased, opinion, michael and alex have created more problems by saying "we have too many problems to work it out" than by actually, like, trying to work it out. probably because every time any amount of talking gets done one of them storms off in anger instead of sticking around the way real human* beings do. and not to point fingers, bc i love echo, but max literally covered up rosa's murder - which he fully believed to be isobel's doing - for TEN YEARS and echo worked that out in like, three episodes! but malex has ten year old trauma - that is nobody's fault, just a combination of shitty luck, shitty parents, and expectedly shitty teenage-level coping skills - and they can't work that out? i mean don't get me wrong, the caufield shit throws a wrench in all of that, but two people who are THAT devoted to each other surely could have worked through it with time and a little effort. and perhaps no threesomes. *end rant*
> 
> *u know what i mean.
> 
> come yell at me about malex and buddie on [twitter](http://twitter.com/kiwiiesbian), and also i made a [malex playlist](http://open.spotify.com/playlist/6uEnk15AFKZdJOOzynj6GR?si=NI4BbxfLQeGEx98mgZyF6Q) i'm really happy with :)


End file.
